I finally had the time to upload another Neopets fic!
There's a bit of a story behind this one. In
Worth Searching For, when Hyren and Blynn are in Brightvale, I inserted what was at the time supposed to be a throwaway joke about how Brightvalians are nerds who play Neoquest, which I portray in my body of work as a tabletop roleplaying game akin to Dungeons & Dragons.
However, when I was brainstorming things for Blynn and Hyren to do in Brightvale, I thought it would be great fun - and in-character - if Blynn actually started playing Neoquest.
Then, as I was writing the very emotionally exhausting final chapters of WSF, partway through I decided I just needed a brief change of pace, and I jotted down a cute, fun little story about Blynn starting to Quest Master her own campaigns at home after the events of WSF. It was the perfect breather before I dove back in to the epic climax of WSF. In some ways, this story also serves as an epilogue of sorts in a "what are they doing now" kind of way.
The first version of this story - which got published in the Neopian Times - reads somewhat differently. That version still had Isengrim with what I'll call his "beta personality", and the main gist of the plotline was him and Hyren just barely getting along while Blynn is trying to start a Neoquest campaign.
However, several years later I decided to revise it, and most importantly give Isengrim his current personality. Doing that, I knew the original conflict was no longer workable because he and Hyren now had a very different relationship dynamic by the point the story takes place, and in fact I ended up removing almost all conflict from the story, mostly making it about how everybody enjoys each other's company, and Isengrim and Hyren barely sorta argue about Isengrim wanting to create his Neoquest character his way.
When I took another look at the story in preparation for putting it on this blog--it just sort of fell flat. The depictions of happy fun times playing Neoquest were cozy and all, but it felt like there was no real cadence to the plotline, no sense of rise and fall, conflict and resolution. Obviously that's not something all short stories need, but with my now-vague hints of Isengrim and Hyren disagreeing, I felt like the second version was missing out on a great opportunity for character development and a good Life Lesson.
So I decided to fix this, and I ended up expanding the story a bit and giving Hyren a solid and prominent character arc, and now I think the story reads much more satisfactorily. Now it's about Hyren learning that just because he's the type of person who always wants things done a certain way to his exact specifications, doesn't mean everybody else will want those specifications--but that's okay, and a lot of the time it's more important to just let people enjoy something in the way that brings them happiness and fulfillment, even if it seems nonsensical or inefficient.
It was raining.
It was a crisp Storing evening in
Altador, and it was raining, and Hyren was doing his best not to catch a cold.
The blue Grundo hated rain. But he found it easier to tolerate curled up on a plush couch in his family’s library, wrapped in a down comforter, enjoying the blazing heat of the fireplace, and sipping a mug of steaming
borovan while reading the
Neopian Times.
The rain could patter on the tile roof of their villa and stream down the tall windows as much as it liked, but it could never get to Hyren in here, and that made him feel superior and snug.
